The Weird and Interesting

By 8:30, I was on the road. Soon I was cruising east on US Route 80. Route 80 is an historic highway, one of the first transcontinental roads in the country, once running from San Diego to Tybee Island, Georgia. Unfortunately, like historical Route 66, it’s been chopped up, with some parts merging with interstates and some parts simply disappearing.

The first leg of my trip was the Weird Things portion. Admittedly, not all the sites I stopped at were weird, but at least they were unusual or special.

My first stop was in Rodeo, New Mexico, at the Chiricahua Desert Museum. If you’re ever in the area, it’s a great stop with one dollar coffee, a desert museum, and a special snake section to the museum.

What I wanted to see was outside. Just south of the building stood a 15 foot tall rattlesnake rattle fabricated from metal.

Then I went inside, grabbed a quick coffee, and continued north on Highway 80. My second stop was midway between the town of Rodeo and Interstate 10 on the east side of the road. That’s where a favorite tree of mine grows.

The entire Southwest is in serious drought. Driving through the valley, I saw so many dead trees and shrubs. But there, growing out of solid rock, was my tree. I have no idea how it survives. I’ve been watching it grow for around 40 years.

After a quick green chile cheeseburger in Deming, I continued to Las Cruces to see the Roadrunner statue made of scrap metal.

In Las Cruces, I also found the world’s largest chile, a pink elephant, and then in Veterans Park, a memorial commemorating the Bataan Death March. For those who don’t know about it, during World War II in the Philippines, cornered Allied troops surrendered. 78,000 men, US and Filipino, were forced to walk 65 miles to a Japanese prison camp. It’s estimated that around 10,000 of those men died during the march.

I continued on US Highway 70 to White Sands National Park. Long ago, I got my Senior Parks Pass there. Back then it was only five dollars. Probably the best five dollars I’ve ever spent. It’s gotten me into so many national parks for free and I’ve gotten discounted camping in all of them I’ve stayed in.

I settled for the night outside of Alamogordo in a wonderful free spot near the mountains.

In the morning, I decided to go up to Cloudcroft just because I’d never been there. On the way I saw an old barn, or maybe it was a garage. The temperature plummeted nearly 20° during this drive up the mountain. Alamogordo has an elevation of about 4300 feet, but Cloudcroft has an elevation over 8600 feet. After a brief visit, I headed back down on a different highway. Then I headed towards Roswell.

I wanted to show you a few shots of downtown Cloudcroft, but my phone has started disappearing photos. I took two in downtown Cloudcroft They were there several days ago, but now they are not. I’ve looked back and found about 20 photos that have disappeared off my phone.

I’ll leave you with this. In Mescalero, I made a quick stop and was startled to find swallows nesting underneath a small overhang on the building. Enlarge the picture and you can see the ledge is lined with birds and nests.